- Meaningful ways to celebrate Christmas and other Holidays
Part 1: The Miracles of Christmas plan
Thanksgiving morning, November 25, 2009, our family came up with a new and meaningful way to celebrate Christmas. After bringing it up and discussing it with my spouse over Thanksgiving breakfast, we decided we should discuss the idea with the rest of the family - they loved the idea! The fact we all agreed that it was at least a good idea in theory, is a miracle in and of itself. The idea is about making dreams and wishes come true, it’s about The Miracles of Christmas, and it might even make a Scrooge look forward to Christmas again. Perhaps this will be your Christmas of the future. Of course this theme may be used at other holidays such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, birthdays, you name it.
The Miracles of Christmas is a new way to celebrate a more meaningful Christmas or other Holiday. The idea is to allow one Christmas/Holiday wish per person and then to give that person the undivided attention and participation of the whole family or group for an allotted time period, agreed upon by all. If you have a large family, you may wish or need to spread this out over a couple days, and if you have a small family; you may choose to allow more time for each person. You create the guidelines.
This is a 3 part post - with Part 3 coming after the 2009 Christmas holiday. Please check back to hear our personal story after the holidays.
The Miracles of Christmas Plan:
• This may be done as a family, as a group of friends, or as a ministry toward a select group of individuals.
• Have family members, or your group of friends, think of something meaningful to them that they would like to do at Christmas. Family/group members could take the attitude that they will move heaven and earth to make it happen – within reason of course.
• Make a list and check it twice.
• Pay no attention to who’s naughty or nice – it’s not about that – it’s about miracles.
• Each person gets one hour, or an agreed upon period of time, to enjoy their Christmas Miracle with the assistance and undivided attention of all the others.
• The time allotment will depend on how large the group is.
• It's important that ideas are not rejected out of hand, or because they're impractical or too expensive.
• At first everyone should brainstorm and then gradually narrow their ideas down to the ones that are reasonable and feasible.
• All should be reasonable in their requests and not be disappointed if an idea must be filed away for another time.
• No one gets to lord it over anyone else or ask someone to be their slave for an hour.
• People should be considerate and invite participation or simply allow family/group members to be spectators.
• It could happen that 2 or 3 decide to combine their Christmas wish and then 2-3 hours would be spent on that activity.
• It does not need to involve much money.
• It may be that someone finds buying a new toy is meaningful, so be it.
• Keep the miracle list for future reference – it may be used at birthdays or other special occasions.
• Start this process on Thanksgiving Day or a couple weeks before the holiday to get it all decided and worked out before Christmas. Or I suppose one could be thinking about it all year.
• You may wish to establish a rule that small children have to wait til they're 5 or 6 years old before they can choose their own event, parents or other family members would choose something for them, or they would just be a participant in everyone else's hour.
• Do whatever works, make adjustments to the plan as you see fit
• Prior to the big day, plan out the Christmas Miracles in a coordinated way, wasting no time, planning for meals, naps, potty breaks, travel, forgetfulness, and other little issues that may pop up during the day.
This is Part 1: The Miracles of Christmas - The Plan
See Part 2: 58 Miracles of Christmas - Ideas to get you started
See Part 3: After the Miracles of Christmas - Our personal story - how did it go (published after Christmas 2009)
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